When
she was little, our oldest daughter, Shelly, would climb up in my
lap with one of her favorite story books � Snow White, Sleeping
Beauty, Cinderella, etc. Daddy was expected to read to her. Daddies
should read to their children. Daddies should also play with
them. I tended to do both.

�Once
upon a time,� I�d begin by reading the opening page of her little
book then quickly flip to the back of the book. �They all lived
happily ever after.�

�Daddy!!!�
Shelly would say, �That�s not right!�

She
knew I�d left something out. A lot, in fact. It�s too bad Americans
don�t realize they�re missing a good part of the fairy tale called
Public School Reform. First, we�re told that only �some� public
schools [mostly those inner city schools that poor, unfortunate
minority children are forced into via economic segregation] are
the low performers. Like all other fairy tales, school performance
statistics are a fairy tale, and those who claim they support school
reform are promising happily ever after. Well, once upon a time, they
could get away with that lie, but not anymore.

All
public schools are bad, though some are indeed worse than others.

Please
think about the millions of functionally
illiterate Americans out there. How do you think they got
that way? Seventy-five percent of public elementary schools use the
whole language method to teach kids [not] to read. Whole
language attempts to teach kids to memorize whole words. Spelling
rules are not taught, unless you count what educrats call invented
spelling. It�s little wonder that kids starved on the whole
language diet from kindergarten through 4th grade develop an anemic
vocabulary of less than 1,600 words � words they can�t spell.
I wish I could say the other 25% of elementary schools use phonics
and only phonics.

Unlike
whole language, which stupidly expects kids to memorize the whole
English language, phonics requires kids to memorize 44 phonetic sounds
with associated spelling rules. Kids who are taught phonics
from kindergarten through the 4th grade will develop a reading
vocabulary of over 24,000 words!

There
is a problem though. The whole language crowd couldn�t let all those
young minds escape their illiteracy nets. They claim �some� kids have
difficulty articulating certain phonic sounds, so they demand whole
language be inflicted on all kids in order to accommodate these
few kids who tend to be from families stuck in generational poverty.
Their parents are not likely to use correct grammar or enunciate words
correctly, so they come to kindergarten with limited language skills.
But it�s a mere deficiency, not a permanent defect. When these
kids are tutored in phonemic
awareness and phonics, they can develop the same language
skills as other kids.

The
System�s strategy is to reduce their peers� language skills � educrats�
sick philosophy of equal education. As part of a concept called
�balanced curriculum,� many schools who teach phonics are forced to
also use the whole language method. They�re allowed to teach
some phonics, using dumbed down modern primers � not the good,
commercial stuff like Hooked
on Phonics or Alpha
Phonics. More importantly, they�re forced to use whole
language vocabulary books. These restrictions are sort of like a race
in which good runners are required to wear 10-pound ankle weights,
so they won�t get too far ahead of the other runners.

[Do
you recall how homeschoolers used to dominate national events like
spelling and geography bees? Claiming homeschoolers had an �unfair
advantage,� teachers unions and their subversive allies put so many
restrictions on homeschooling contestants, they�ve pretty much been
disqualified from these competitions.]

Those
of you encumbered with that useless appendage called common sense
are probably thinking we could reform public schools quickly if all
state legislatures would simply outlaw the whole language method in
their perspective state districts. There are two problems with this
kind of thinking. First, you simply don�t understand that all state
systems are joined at the hip with The System itself, forming
a monster with more than 50 tentacles, your state system simply being
one of its arms. Secondly, The System is glued together with federal
dollars and those dollars come from your taxes and big business.
Phonics only cost about $30 per student to teach, but whole language
cost over $215 per student. Can you see a financial incentive for
using whole language?

Literacy
is more than reading and writing though. What about math? The next
time you encounter that young sales clerk who can�t give you correct
change without using a calculator or computerized cash register, keep
in mind that 2nd graders are no longer taught to memorize their multiplication
tables. In fact, calculators are now being issued to 1st grade teachers.
Again, if you�re thinking we can fix this problem by taking away calculators,
please consider how this will affect the profit margins of the companies
that sell calculators and computers to public schools.

Science?
Need we go there? If you�ve read any of my NewsWithViews.com articles
or my book, Legally
STUPiD: Why Johnny doesn�t have to read, you know what I think
of teaching the Theory of Evolution as a science. It rightfully
belongs in the category of religion [a.k.a., humanism].
Also, because chemistry and physics require a strong foundation in
math, it�s little wonder so few high school graduates have acquired
the core knowledge these courses would otherwise provide, and probably
why so many Americans fail to question distraction theories about
global warming.

What
about history? If we don�t know where we�ve been, how will we understand
where we�re heading? Today�s history textbooks are so dumbed down,
it�s pointless to teach history, not that teachers are encouraged
to teach anything. American history is the most important history
any American child should learn, but our kids no longer learn about
our forefathers, their Christian faith and their struggles for religious
as well as political freedom or the wars they fought to make 13 frontier
colonies into the greatest nation in history. Important dates and
facts about the lives of statesmen and presidents, soldiers and generals,
inventors and scientists, authors and poets were purposely left out
of each succeeding edition of American history textbooks to a point
where there was no more need to mention them anymore. But how
will the next generation of Americans retain an American identity
with no knowledge of their American heritage?

I
wish we could pass legislation requiring textbook publishers to remove
the politically correct but factually false Afro-centric, homo-centric
and even Islamic-centric sections in their history textbooks and replace
them with the true story of American history. But do you really think
elitists won�t fight for their socialistic worldview of history? Do
you think it�s possible that elitists want our children to think of
themselves as part of the international community and no longer as
Americans?

Even
if all 50 state legislatures outlawed every one of The
Seven Deadly Sins of Public Education, big business, teachers
unions and other special interest groups would block the will of the
people, thanks to their control of the court system. Popular reform
measures like charter
schools and education
vouchers are proof that real school reform is little more than
a fairy tale. Teachers unions have venomously attacked these measures,
claiming they�re unnecessary and flawed. But then, teachers� unions
care only about power, not the interests of most teachers [especially
the real ones] and certainly not the interests of children.

Charter
schools� record isn�t greatly better than regular public schools,
but at least there�s potential for improvement because you have genuine
parental involvement, and there�s an opportunity to follow a classical
approach to education, instead of today�s multicultural, prole-producing
teaching strategies. The best way for the charter school movement
to succeed is for the FBI and that new, unneeded bureaucracy called
Homeland Security to arrest teachers� union leaders and lobbyists
for terrorism and treason. Teachers� unions have been
destroying America�s intellectual
capital for three generations by supporting The Seven Deadlies,
and they�ve ruthlessly ambushed every serious suggestion for real
school reform, beheading all suggestions for academic competition.
Besides, when do you think you�ll hear about the great raid on Democratic,
I mean, NEA
and AFT
headquarters?

Vouchers
do offer parents an option they haven�t had in decades � choice.
Even if the unions didn�t oppose vouchers [which, of course, they
do], I�m concerned about government strings attached to education
vouchers, which could be used to send kids to Christian schools.
I don�t trust bureaucrats to not try to interfere with what is being
taught or even who we must accept in our church-run schools. If Baptist
parents send their Baptist children to a Catholic school [or vice
versa], they needn�t expect the law to protect their children
from being taught Catholic beliefs [or vice versa]. Anti-Christian
elitists would use vouchers to water down academic and biblical
instruction in Christian schools. I�d rather see a state tax credit
for parents who choose to homeschool or put their kids in a Christian
school, but do you think the professional politicians out there would
authorize such a tax credit?

The best way to reform public schools is to stop treating them like
a fairy tale and recognize them for the monster The System
has become. We may not slay the beast, but we can at least sever its
limbs. Unelected elitists removed prayer, bible reading, discipline
and real learning from public schools through litigation. Prince
Charming, it�s time to reverse the charges.

Consider
the millions of functionally illiterate Americans out there, all products
of The System. These poor victims need legal representation to fight
for their civil right to a quality public education. Instead of an
education that provided them with the core knowledge to qualify them
for a good job or college, they were cheated out of real learning
because educrats claimed their different learning style required
different [lower] expectations, which required different
teaching strategies, which mandated different [lower] academic
standards and subsequently resulted in different [lower] academic
achievement. Since public schools have re-instated the old Separate
but Equal school systems with Different but
Equal teaching strategies, I implore all warm-hearted, selfless
lawyers to file thousands of class action lawsuits against public
school administrators, superintendents, state boards, teachers unions,
textbook publishers, etc. on behalf of millions of children who�ve
been left behind.

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I
realize the chances of winning such lawsuits are about the same as
those folks suing fast food restaurants for making them fat, but then
it worked against the tobacco companies. Regardless, the publicity
of thousands of lawsuits around the country might wake up tens of
thousands of parents, maybe enough to make them get personally involved
in their kids� education � maybe even enough to entice them to choose
homeschooling or putting their kids in a church-run Christian school.
Other parents might fight to sever financial ties to the federal government,
political ties to the teachers� unions and spiritual ties to the god
of this world. No, merely crippling the monster won�t make everything
happily ever after, but it will make our schools better and
maybe save our country.

R.C.
Murray is a disabled veteran and former public school teacher. He left
a good job as a technical writer for a satellite manufacturer in order
to teach high school English, only to immediately be told he could not
expect, much less require his students to read their literature assignments.
After four years of fighting The System and having a stroke then a mini-stroke,
he decided he was safer in the airborne infantry and returned to being
a technical writer for a military contractor.

He
has also dedicated the rest of his life to exhorting parents about what�s
really going on in their local public school, the one they think is a
good school. R.C. Murray is the author of two books, Golden Knights: History
of the U.S. Army Parachute Team and most recently, Legally
STUPiD: Why Johnny doesn�t have to read.

Instead
of an education that provided them with the core knowledge to qualify
them for a good job or college, they were cheated out of real learning
because educrats claimed their different learning style required
different [lower] expectations...